This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
We’ve got Eric Hovind planning to send his ‘students’ here on Friday. They should post here in the unmoderated thread.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Brace yourselves for presuppositional nonsense.
I think you should provide links in the Australian thread.
Else they’ll get all lost
an’ stuff
and I bet they shit in the corners
That’s not a good thing in an igloo…
Damn, I actually have something usefull to do tomorrow morning.
Depends. If it’s already dead it will keep fresh for a long time. So, much better than one of their chicken relatives.
wait, Eric Hovind has students?
or are these kidnapees?
A “clean” conversation? Is that one where you wash your hands before and come with a napkin tucked into your shirt? Or is it one where you refrain from spewing bullshit?
What are they studying? Tax accountancy?
Or is it one where you refrain from spewing bullshit?
no no, it’s one where you agree ahead of time not to use words like:
Fuck the fucking fuckers.
Shit, that crap stinks.
and of course never ever refer to their imaginary deities names in “vain”.
Jesus Christ, what a fucking shitfest it will be.
I thought a clean conversation is the one not polluted with inconvenient facts, reliable sources, intelligence… you know the kind of thing that brings a conversation on a higher level than the one hovind is capable of.
“Clean” conversation is rather like Reddit’s version of free speech: it means freedom from consequences.
Hey, Eric, if you’re paying attention, and these really are a random group of kids you conned parents out of cash to get sent to you, might I recommend you send them instead to Jerry’s Blog for a change of pace?
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/
Jerry runs a much “cleaner” ship over there; much more family friendly.
they’ll still get the crap you stuffed in their mouths washed out, but it will be done much more… civilly… that here.
I’m wondering how much “good faith” there is on the side of those asking for “clean conversation”
Won’t they just retreat to the Lounge to avoid unpleasant swears?
And if it’s Presuppositionalist Apologetics there’s going to be swearing.
And after the tenth repeat of “But you can’t even know anything to ask that question in the first place”, attempted strangulation.
I think Hovind’s definition of a “clean conversation” is one where you lie your arse off, then when someone calls you a fucking liar, you win. The point of the exercise is probably to show his students that non-creationists like to swear, and the truth can go fuck itself for all he cares.
I like the argument that the guys from Fundamentally Flawed used:
I know you’re wrong because the Ghost That Never Lies told me so. Anyone who disagrees with me is automatically wrong, because they clearly do not have access to the one, true source of knowledge; the Ghost That Never Lies.
Anytime the Hovindites asks “how do you know that?”
GTNL told me.
How can you be sure it’s right?
GTNL told me it’s right.
But my god says differently.
GTNL says that your god is simply a delusion.
But I know my god exists
No, you don’t. The only source of true knowledge is GTNL.
Etc. See, we can presuppose nonsense, too.
Are these ‘students’ the same ones that walk by enormous university libraries with millions of data-backed books on biology, geology, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology, etc. that all but prove an ancient universe, world and evolution so they can squeeze into a dorky conference room with one book (or worse, one video, that the presenter is desperately trying to sell you) and pretend at being more informed? That sounds freakishly like delusional fear-based superstition, not human curiosity and actual studying to me.
See, the word study…it’s essentially right there in ‘students’. These can’t really be students then. If they were really ‘studying’ they would be in much larger libraries, surrounded by many, many more books. And surrounded certainly by more than one teacher who wants you to buy his videos at $19.95 a pop.
@ Tony
I used the shortened form in the interests of brevity. If you like:
@ chigau
No,no, of course not! As 2IC you have complete insight into .
The shape of The Thunderdome is spherical – as all fans of the new Pharyngula Movie (not yet released, I am struggling to get my Blender skills up to speed) are well aware.
…
Should we not be rallying the troups to fend off the invasion tomorrow? Should we be sharpening our questions and loading our responses in preparation? Fortunately we have a new Politburo member on board (Cde DarkInfant) to help co-ordinate.
theophontes:
Then it’s a sphere, not a dome.
(Though a dome can be hemispherical, but then, so can a bowl)
<snicker>
(Troups with croups?)
@ John Morales
Only the “dome” part appears above ground level (though not in the first installments).
((Damnit, now I have to change the script, just so I can appear to be right…!))
We shall welcome them to the bathosphere, while the domeheads battle the coneheads and the eggheads will have their little yolks.
When they come, it’s critical that we stay in formation. Nobody runs off alone. We watch each other’s backs.
And remember: head shots. Only head shots are effective.
Unmoderated? Does that mean I can say anything? Anything at all? Like bad words and stuff just like on South Park?
Barbara Streisand!
HA HA HAAAAA!!! Take that prudes!
Clean Conversations: Remaining Clean-ish in everyday settings, by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley (emphasis, etc., as in original):
I’m not endorsing the above per se.
I also suspect it’s not what’s meant. I myself suspect what is meant is some variable and varying combination of “no naughty words”, “no nasty facts”, “fecking stoopid babblings only”, “if it ain’t how ‘I’ interpret the wholly useless babble then ‘you’ must be wrong”, and “whatever ‘I’ make up, which ‘I’ can retroactively change”.
Just how clean can a conversation be when someone has ‘pre-supposed’ an answer (which is every bit as cheesy as the ontological argument, but with 40% more fat), is showing up with the obligatory ‘six things biology hasn’t explained yet (while ignoring the other 300 million things it has explained)’ and resorts to magical thinking whenever things go wrong?
There’s only so many times a person can wheel out the right answers/scientific method/try this at home – it works wagon before the only recourse is to blurt out, ‘how fucking stupid are you? Four year old children are understanding this and making accurate predictions with it, for fucksake!’
McC2lhu doesn’t want to know what you did there. @16
They only read one book, but its a good book
Anyway, I thought Eric’s ‘Theory’ does make accurate predictions – it accurately predicts the transfer of currency from the believer to the Pastor (Father, minister, monk, Epop, Lama… etc).
Usagichan (with the lovely odango), there should be enough moment’s hesitation after a Minchin tune to keep a Hovind from ever having ‘students.’ Bible apologetics are rape, murder and slavery apologetics. It is also tiresome that the Hovindkind never give pause to consider that if magical mechanisms were scientifically proven tomorrow, this wouldn’t prove the existence of their deity. One would certainly hope not, or we actually would have to stone our children to death, or burn a woman who decided to dance nude on Spring solstice. By ignoring the bibble, we show far superior ethics to the fictional thing they would want all of us to be forced to worship in their future theocracy.
This should always preface a ‘debate’ on evolution. The question of “why are you attacking the process of scientific investigation as a defense of a book ethically unwarranted of defending” should be asked of every Hovind acolyte. Fear of the unknown causes superstitious thinking, but the unknown becomes a dwindling quantity when science is applied. Too bad people’s fears are so abused by religions to overrides normal intellectual curiosity and perpetuate needless ‘noise,’ rather than learning and finding real joy from the universe and all its sights, sounds, processes, creatures and extremes of violence (such as supernovas) and elegance (a dandelion seed caught on a breeze). Pretending that these things are the work of imagined overlords, especially sadistic ones, cheapens, not enhances them.
Usagichan: That’s not a theory, that’s a *hypothe$i$!
—-
*At least until after accounting reviews returns.
OMG I hate the %^*(&^@(%?@%(&!(*^$#(&#%^&*)n floating ads on FTB.
that is all.
McC2lhu,
True, with the added advantage that it is less taxing than science… and
not to mention mandatory genocide… Although for me that’s just symptomatic of the real problem of getting your morality second hand, from someone claiming to represent absolute authority (leaving aside that acting morally through compulsion is hardly acting morally at all).
Been waiting all morning for the “Hovmind” to start, y nada.
How fortuitous!
I have recently declared, via the Internet Statement on Owlmirrorical Inerrancy, that I am inerrant.
I will also steal a march on Catholics, and declare myself infallible on faith and morals.
Hovind’s students who think I am wrong merely have an inherently depraved and anti-Owlmirror nature.
Coyne’s blog?
“Bike-riding kitteh”
Otherwise it’s All About Jerry, by Jerry. The dude publishes more pictures of himself than Abbie Smith or even JT What’shisname.
And he uses the appellation “Ceiling Cat” alternately as a jokey substitute for ‘God’ and to refer to himself in the third person.
J.A.I.N.
(Still, there’s much more biology over there than around here anymore. An observation, not a criticism.)
Or, they may have been deceived by an evil spirit, perhaps even by Boltzmann Brontosaurus itself.
Just been very pissed off at an interview on a highly popular sceptical news podcast; I need some popcorn-worthy hovindian flamebait to make me howl with laughter instead of rage, and lower my blood pressure.
.
(Who the fuck says it’s YOUR fucking tent?!)
(Breathe. Choke off the rant. Say no more. Calm, waving fields of wheat or somesuch…)
.
I suppose they’ll be released from Castle Eric on US time though. Sigh.
I’m more inerrant than you. I don’t even need to declare my inerrantity, er, inerrancy. And yer mother drinks wallpaper paste, and yer father was a shipworm. So there! Pfffffffffft!!!1!111!
Emrysmyrddin@36
Puts on best singsong voice, “somebody just listened to this week’s SGU didn’t they?”. My coworkers had to put up with me muttering obscenities for most of Tuesday morning because of that interview.
bargearse: Haha. I was trying to be diplomatic. But yes, yes it was.
*begins to mutter – *
.
No! I will not be dragged back in!
*goes back to winding string dolls; it’s soothingly repetitive, and involves no tents whatsoever*
Get back in the tent! Alternatively, where are these Hovindites I was promised?
But by stating that you are more inerrant than I, you are declaring your inerrancy. So saying that you don’t need to is wrong, therefore you aren’t more inerrant than I am, and your claim of inerrancy is necessarily false.
Ta-da!
But yer mother was a sack of peas, and yer father was a horse!
This explains much, methinks.
Keep in mind that innerent pronouncements are only those that are declared to be innerent and are pronounce ex cathedra — from the throne. So in order for either one of you to acutally be innerent, you must declare that what you are saying (or writing) is, actually and specifically, inerrent and must declare it from the throne. So you’d both better be commenting from the bathroom or it don’t count!
where are the “students?” they must be sleeping in.
i can’t wait til they chum the blog.
All Hail Tpyos!
That was impressive. I spelled ‘inerrent/innerent’ two different ways in one comment and dropped a ‘d’ from pronuonced.
Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try the crawfish thermidor.
Therefore your argument is false and disproven, and my inerrancity, er, inerrancy, must be true. Which disproves the clams of that heretic pretender, awlminion.
(Do you realise how hard it is to write hovindmind “logic”? My brain keeps screaming “but, but, but…”.)
I only worship Anoia, the Godess of Things That Get Stuck In Drawers. I hear She’s moving into becoming the Godess of Lost Causes as well so I’ll try to get some of the “students” to consider how much more evidence there is for Her than for their god.
That cause should be lost enough to please Her. Maybe She’ll let me find my corkscrew. I have this bottle of Yellowtail Shiraz……
May Her spatula always rattle.
Darn, looks like I’m going to miss the Hovindites. Gotta run errands today.
Oh, and I’m going to put a second vote in for I bloody hate the floating adds on my phone. They get bigger and bigger whenever I zoom in, an usually won’t let me close the damned things.
Take up my whole screen, they do.
Floating adds?
Yeah, floating-point maths is tricksy. Stick to integers.
Goddammit. Floating Ads.
*wanders off muttering about Tpyos*
Hey does anyone want to engage in a good conversation about God?
I’m getting bored, let’s get this party started.
How do you know anything?
Because I know a God that knows EVERYTHING, and He can’t lie.
How do you know anything to be true?
How do you know God?
We know God through the revealed Word of Scripture.
Because He has revealed HImself to us in the Bible.
So you believe in Allah? Me too!
How do you know that scripture came from god?
oops. Damn. Quoted the wrong post.
Meant to quote this:
dobbshead:
Through His revealed Word.
Hey anybody want to join in an interesting convo???
Lies. Only Allah’s words are truly revealed. Stop denying the One True God.
How do you know that it’s god’s revealed word?
Glad to hear you’re not an Atheist.
Er, I didn’t think hovind meant actual ten-year-olds when he wrote “students”.
@dobbshead Because Scripture tells us it is God’s revealed Word.
I demand you rescind your blasphemy against Odin.
@ DPB How do you know that Allah is the only true God?
Wow, they all started off on the same script. That’s what I think of when I want to have a free-flowing useful conversation! Scripts! Whee!
You already know the answer. The same way you think your god is the only true god.
@Portia so since you believe in Odin your NOT an atheist?
I’m glad to hear that you all seem to have beliefs in gods. Allah, Odin… And here I thought you were atheists! :)
Is this the same god that “knows” the world is flat, that it rests on pillars, that the sky is a dome with little lights hanging from it? The same god that “knows” bats lay eggs, rabbits chew their cud, insects have four legs, and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world?
All that stuff is demonstrably wrong. It does match up, however, with all the erroneous ideas that the perfectly ordinary people of biblical times believed.
You know it’s god because it says it’s god?
I am god, this is my revealed word, the Christian bible is false. Prove me wrong.
She was joking.
But since you believe in Jesus, you admit to being a tool of Satan?
@ Dobbshead So if you are claiming to be god, can we assume you know everything? Or is there information in the universe that you don’t know?
If you happen to think that Guhd has given you a gift of logic, I’d ask for a refund.
@dobbshead: Do you know everything? Because if you don’t, you’re not God.
Hey friendly neighborhood Atheists.
We have 6 groups of students that can’t wait to engage you. There is no script, they just want to see if the Atheist has anything to stand on.
Ok dobbshead, honey, you’re god. It’s not like anyone has ever properly defined the term. If you want to call yourself “god”, go ahead.
If you’re going to take me literally, then I worship dobbshead. Prove me wrong that’s xe’s not the Ultimate Deity.
@DPB Oh do you have any real arguments against God? Anything to actually stand on?
@Portia: because dobbshead doesn’t know everything.
We. Are. THE Atheist.
One mind.
One message.
Unite.
hoveround sez,
I’d start by saying that no one person can speak for a group (and yes, not even Myers), but I doubt your acolytes have been exposed to such a social structure.
Liar.
I was hoping for “Hello, my name is Eric Hovind.”
But I guess this isn’t a PhD thesis, is it?
@Portia How do you know that he is the “ultimate deity”? Is it possible that you could be wrong?
Prove it. Ask questions of hir. Prove the answers are wrong. Isn’t that how this works? You think proving a negative is possible, then do it.
I’m very sorry, but your “god” does not know much of anything either.
But go ahead and conveniently ignore that.
Since there has been some confusion as to God’s definition:
God: The all-knowing Creator of the universe who has revealed Himself to all people and cannot lie.
Did you go to that cocktail party too? Man, the wine was great. Not too sure on the buffet, though; a hundred and fifty variations on bread gets a little stale after a while. Nice concept, poor execution. So, how did this (g)od introduce herself to you? I had a bit of difficulty choosing which hand to shake; eight arms give you a lot more options than the usual.
As soon as I discovered the revealed words of the One Lord, I knew I’d been lied to my entire life. It does matter if you’re born of two magical parents, no matter what those liberul Hogwartsian types try to indoctrinate you with. The Daily Prophet is just too Mainstream Media to publish the Truth. Plus, the DE club has the most awesome tattoos.
Thanks for reminding me: I need to get some new stepladders since the ones I have at the moment are held together with binder twine.
I’m asking you to prove me wrong.
Ok, spoiler alert. The point is your position is unfalsifiable.
It is early but this has to be the funniest and most dishonest line to come out of this clusterfuck.
Have fun people. You might as well debate parrots.
Except parrots are more honest.
@thunk, Blob Alert! How do you know that?
So many . And all equally credible.
–
*sigh*
Here you demonstrate that you come to an atheist forum and don’t actually know what atheism is.
Do you have any REAL arguments for god? Or do you want to just argue against strawmen?
“Why the fuck would anyone need arguments against a figment of your imagination?”
QFMFT.
#56 Apologia
“We know God through the revealed Word of Scripture.”
that books has been EOL’d and is out of warranty
http://www.baptist2baptist.net/printfriendly.asp?ID=43
@Portia and @scorpy1 You guys need to get your story straight. Seems a bit contradictory.
Are you denying that Nagini died for our sins??!?
See, Hovind, that’s how that thing called individualism works. New concept for you, I can tell.
Which version of the thousands of sometimes mutually exclusive version of the scripture is one true one? Keep in mind, the damn thing was edited, mistranslated, miscopied, bowdlerized, and poetryized so many times that even scholars cannot agree on what some of it actually says.
And for an infallible god, how the fuck did your so-called god come up with pi=3?
@Portia I asked if you personally could be wrong?
Would anyone like to honestly answer the question, “How do you know what is truth?” Because up to this point it seems everyone has simply resorted to name-calling and sarcasm…
In that case, “God” will be able to tell you whether or not there is an odd perfect number, and provide a proof of the answer. Can’t provide one? Then you’re obviously lying.
I was mocking your phrasing. Xe chose to respond without snark.
You made the positive claim, that such a creature exists. Burden of proof is on you. Get crackin’. Whatcha got?
I’ve already pointed out a bunch of stuff demonstrably wrong with “His revealed word.” So that won’t work.
Ah. I see the problem now. That was just a door-to-door salesman. You really shouldn’t believe everything that comes out of those people’s mouth. They’d say anything in order to sell you an overpriced vacuum cleaner.
That’s actually not true. I’ve been pretty sarcastic, and maybe some others, but the sarcasm had real points underneath if you chose to look. Lots of people have made substantive points. They are being ignored. Need I remind you that no one came to your house and demanded to be treated with kid gloves?
You’re claiming that a god exists. So, provide proof. Badda bing. Go.
@DPB I want to know your arguments against God.
#93 Apologia
Well if you believe in your book he did lie, often so which is it?
Can one of you godbots point to actually evidence for the existence of any god? Doesn’t even have to be the misogynistic genocidal Abrahamic god, any would do.
I don’t know how old you are, but I very much doubt there is anything honest in your asking that question. To pretend you are unaware of concepts such as evidence, and the burden of proof, and the scientific method is too treat us like idiots. We are not idiots, so stop thinking we are, and start being a little less disingenuous.
@feralboy12: Logic. Logic exists, correct?
The concept of an “odd perfect number” is totally illogical. If you would like God to be illogical, that’s fine. But that’s not the God of the Bible.
My guess is that no one has answered it because it’s a stupid and boring question that won’t get us anywhere.
Either that or it’s just gotten lost in the flurry of comments.
Sarcasm, dude.
But then, I thought you understood humour, being a joke of a human being and all :)
@Portia “I’m asking you to prove me wrong.” What proof would make you believe there is a God?
Nope, now I’m asking the questions. Can you prove dobbs doesn’t know everything?
If anyone died for our sins, it was Severus, you filthy Gryffindor blasphemer!
Bwahahahahaha!
Sorry people, I need a howling fit of the giggles break. I can’t see the keys, I’m so dizzy from laughing. I knew this would be entertaining.
Bats are birds, insects have four legs, pi=3. Do you even read your so-called holy book? And if so, which of the thousands of versions is actually holy writ?
You’ve just shown that erichovind was lying when he claimed there was no script. We know your script, and we’re not following it.
I am certainly not trying to treat anyone like an idiot, but you raise an interesting point. As an Atheist, what basis do you have for assuming the scientific method is valid? Could it ever be shown to be invalid?
@Portia: sure can. dobbs doesn’t know my name.
#109 Apologia I have responded with arguments using your material not sarcasm or name calling yet you respond not.
Evidence, not proof. Proofs only exist in mathematics. Do you understand the difference between proof and evidence ?
Again, you don’t know what atheism is. Way to not do your homework.
Atheists, for the most part, don’t believe in God.
Note: this is not the same as believing gods don’t exist.
You are assuming for some reason that all atheists are saying that gods don’t exist. From my experience most don’t hold that position.
If Hovind hasn’t taught you this, he is a shitty teacher.
scorpy1 @123
LLOL, well played.
One, just one actual piece of evidence. Not, “I read it in a really old book that says it’s his word,” not, “because I feel his power and if only you could feel it too.” Give something, hell, anything, I can point to and say, “yep, that clinches things.” I don’t ask for a miracle but please, give me something.
A valid one, starting from premises I accept.
If you want to claim it’s “logic,” you need to run us through the logical steps. Saying it’s “logic” without further explanation is meaningless. You might as well say it’s because “plywood. Ha! Refute that!”
Do you even know what the scientific method is? What it entails? Please, give us a quick explanation of what you think the scientific method is.
I’d like a reference if you would so oblige. :)
@bargearse (#136): Logic exists. Logic is intangible and it is universal. Where did it come from?
God.
Without God, it wouldn’t make sense.
You only think that. Xe does. Next.
(No, xe will not tell you your name and prove xe knows it. Because I have faith xe knows your name. That’s all I need).
apologia,
“Atheist doesn’t need an initial upper-case letter, you ignoramus. Didn’t “God” even tell you that?
It works.
Yes: it could stop working.
The scientific method works, which is a pretty good basis for thinking it is a valid means of understanding the Universe. As to whether it could be shown to be invalid, the answer has to be no. It could be shown to be invalid in certain situations, but since it has already been shown to work it cannot be shown to invalid in all situations. It is also important to note that when it comes to understanding how the Universe works never has the answer come from anything other than science.
Fly! Fly, my pretties!
@Matt Penfold So do you think there are absolute truths, for example in mathematics?
Ah, the C.S. Lewis line. Time for a new script, I see.
Using observation to observe, test, and repeat experiments to show us information about the world. Interestingly, this assumes the universe is governed by laws that are universal, immaterial, and unchanging. How do you account for these laws in your worldview?
The scientific method is valid because it works. And it works by following actual evidence, evidence that can be shown to others and replicated by others. If no one can replicate the results of an experiment, then that experiment is considered invalid (see Pons & Fleishmann for a good example). If others can replicate the results, the result is conditionally confirmed.
If this system ever stops working (and it hasn’t) it would be shown to be invalid. Until then, we keep using it because it works.
God is the quadratic formula?
Which logic, ignoramus? There are scores of different logics, devised by logicians. Prove that without “God” logic wouldn’t make sense.
@feralboy12 (#138): I’m simply reminding you of the fact that you have a brain and you can think logically. How do you account for that without a God? My comment above (#141).
@feralboy12
How do you define ‘logic’ with your worldview?
No. Even in maths absolute truth is an impossible goal. Godel showed us that.
“Oh do you have any real arguments against God? Anything to actually stand on?”
And…
“How do you know that he is the ‘ultimate deity’? Is it possible that you could be wrong?”
I see what you guys mean about hyper-skepticism. A tactic apparently used by godbotters and slyme pitters alike. And I’ll admit, it gets old really fast.
@msbd2:
In holey scripture, as noted by Improbable Joe, it says that insects have 4 legs.
Let me count… 1…2…3…4…5…6…
Six does not equal four. Therefore, the bible is wrong.
@DPB I am asking if you believe in absolute truth.
hmmm… Jahweh manages to misplace a couple ofhumans, as per Genesis 3:8; and he lies about the effects of eating from the tree of knowledge, as per Genesis 2:17
meaning, whatever “god” you’ve just defined here, it ain’t the one from the bible
Do you believe in absolutes?
So you believe that science provides us with universal, immaterial, unchanging truth?
@Matt Penfold (#154): What’s 2+2? Is there an absolutely true answer to that question?
Since we’re talking mathematics, I’m interested in that p=3 miscalculation in the Bible that some other have already mentioned.
@Matt Penfold So are you absolutely sure about that?
And they claim there is no script.
What a surprise. Eric Hovind lies again.
This is an impressive Gish Gallop, though.
onlybygrace@141
Nope, gonna have to do better than that mate. You’ve assumed the conclusion. Logic is perfectly possible without a god. Show me why I need a god to be logical.
<blockquote cite="@feralboy12 (#138): I’m simply reminding you of the fact that you have a brain and you can think logically. How do you account for that without a God? My comment above (#141).
Hey, I can play this game also.
How can you take a shit with out God?
How can a raped woman get pregnant without God?
How can one have a heart attack without God?
How can a cancer grow without God?
What a fun fucking game!
Hovindites are coming? [Powers up the LOLstar, switches superweapon output from LOLcats to facts, raises the rapid dissipance stupid shields, orders the logic blasters charged, arms Reference torpedoes.]
Just try something Hovindites.
What do you mean by absolute?
And what do you mean by truth?
Uh…Kind of. Numbers are a concept. Not a real physical, tangible thing. 2+2 could equal 5 if we decided to redefine numbers.
How very true, Ogvorbis. This is the same bullshit as the last time Eric Hovind brought along his flying monkeys.
Throws popcorn at everyone!!
@Matt Penfold, So you are saying 2+2 doesn’t always equal 4?
no such thing, and not only because “immaterial truth” is nonsense
140 apologia
right at the begining of the book the lies started Genisis 3:3
they didnt die, they were forced to get a job, without healthcare or contraceptives I might add
@bargearse (#165): In your worldview, there’s no reason why logic should exist. Evolution and chemical processes can’t account for universal, unchanging, absolute laws of logic. God can. He created them. There can’t be a reason for logic without Him.
@DPB I mean can you be 100% sure about anything?
@Matt Penfold, So you are saying 2+2 doesn’t always equal 4?
It equals 10 in Base 3.
Do you know who Kurt Godel was ?
@Matt Penfold, So if you had 2 apples and I gave you 2 more, how many do you have? How do you know there can’t be an absolute truth?
1+1=10 and 1+1=2 are both true. numbers add up the way they do because of how humans have defined them. there’s absolutely a way to make 2+2 not be four; for example, in a base two system, 2+2 = 20
When fucking Big Brother fucking says so, 2+2=5.
Hey kids, why don’t you select a spokesperson and let them type? You’re all repeating yourselves and it’s getting a bit distracting trying to distinguish between fool1, fool2, fool3, …however many there is of you.
(Or preferably, just go away. You’re not amusing)
Not a whole lot, but a few things.
Indeed – truth is dependent on meaning, which is contingent on language, thus truth is contingent and not absolute. Now children, can we have a clear unambiguous logically consistant definition of what we mean by god?
bah, i meant 11
om nom nom popcorn.
DPB (#168): So you’re saying that if I owed you $50 and I gave you 2 twenty-dollar bills, it would be the same. After all, I can define numbers how I want to, according to your worldview.
But in base 3 that is another form of math which has its own absolutes.
Jadehawk,
It’s not like they’ll know what you’re talking about.
onlybygrace,
and what are these universal laws of logic you’re referring to? Care to share a few examples?
Please stop treating me like an idiot, and go an learn about Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Unless and until you have an understanding of that, you are wasting my time.
So you believe in absolutes?
I am about to get all Philosophy 101 on the collective asses of the flying monkey.
Is 2+2=4 because this is what the big sky daddy desires or does the fucking big sky daddy have to yield to the laws of mathematics?
Oh and of course, 2+2 = 10 (base 3), or 22 if + is an append operator… it is all dependant on context (as is everything)!
@DPB So in all the knowledge you are not 100% sure of, is it possible that there could be something that contradicts what you think you know is certain?
that’s not how the word “absolute” works.
Nope, there is no such as absolute truth in maths.
Can you explain why you know nothing of the most important mathematical discovery of the C20th ? What excuse do you have for being so ignorant ?
Then what is “absolute”?
Beatrice, I like your suggestion that they elect a spokestypist to dump their brain-vomit onto the screen. It’d be much easier.
How great is it that they tromp in here with this shit and then complain about the “name-calling” (Where? Godbot?) and the sarcasm.
Jesus Mary-Fucking Christ.
When you go into base 2 or base 3 is just more math but they still have absolutes. Matt Penfold, How do you know there are not any absolutes?
@insipidmoniker (#188): The law of non-contradiction, for one. I cannot be both in a building and outside of it at the same time, and in the same way. It simply doesn’t work. It’s a contradiction. That is a logical law.
@Matt Penfold So is there absolute truth in anything?
There’s Absolut vodka, which I’m going to need, in large quantities, from reading this shit.
Janine:
*applause*
(yeah I’ve given up trying to make any headway with the Hovbots).
*sighs*
NO.
Christ you’re dense. Do you actually think about what you type?
It’s almost unbelievable that someone is so stupid that they would misinterpret what I said in the way you misinterpreted it.
onlybygrace@174
Okaaay, so explain to me these universal laws of logic. What do you mean by that? Please be specific.
oh, that’s adorable: playing semantics without knowing how.
absolutely (adv.) = positively, definitely
absolute (n.) = the ultimate basis of reality
Your cluelessness and your gullibility.
Apologia
God lied to Abraham when he ordered him to kill his kid. He didnt change his mind, he deliberately lied to him.
Now that is two concrete pieces of evidence from your evidence locker that disproves your belief that god cannot lie
Now we have that out of the way is there anything else I can help you with
I see you are another who is proud to be ignorant.
I have some homework for you. Go and read about Incompleteness Theorem. Once you have done that, come back.
Can god be both inside and outside?
I have a bottle of Tito’s in the freezer. I need a few shots.
0K
It strikes me as a little silly to try and say that a concept needs to be proven using itself, but then, you sillies love silly circular arguments.
Look, presuppositional fuckwits, we’re not playing your stupid game, not following your dishonest script. Now, since broboxley@173 has already shown that the god of the Bible does lie, while you claim your god can’t, you need to tell us which god you are talking about.
Onlybygrace,
Tunneling behavior allows particles to exist in more than one place at the same time. There’s a big exception that tears a hole in that particular absolute truth.
God lied numerous times in the Bible. God got up to all sorts of crazy and horrible stuff in that book. He would be history’s greatest monster, if only he existed.
So, just like last time, I guess. Presuppositionalism. They think they have an easy out for all those complicated and disquieting philosophical questions, but it really doesn’t actually explain anything and just raises further questions.
And also, because God is supposedly the ground of all logic and knowledge and what have you, then homosexual people are icky. It’s all terribly convenient.
Hey Atheists. We have 20 more min.
So far all we see is Atheists abandoning Atheism in order to defend it. Got anything better for the students?
While I could reply with evidence to your claims, evidence isn’t really the issue here is it? You wouldn’t accept evidence even if it was offered, because you presuppose that God does not exist. Since you bring up lying, do you believe that lying is morally wrong, and why do you believe that?
Janine, To know anything for absolute you have to know everything or know someone who does, Like our heavenly Father. Do you know everything? or even anything at all?
@199;
Quantum superposition. Look it up.
still no. there are anxioms in math, but not absolutes in the common english definition of the word )there’s such a thing as an absolute value, but that’s just defined as distance from 0, and has nothing to do with absolutes in the dictionary sense)
Your god sounds like kind of a pervert. You should call the police about that shit.
@DPB So in all the knowledge you are not 100% sure of, is it possible that there could be something that contradicts what you think you know is certain? Not sure if you saw this earlier, can you answer it?
Everyone is being so… civil. In the thunderdome. Ladies and Gentlemen, you have my admiration.
But yes, script kiddies are disappointing.
Hovind,
Shame on you for letting such ignorant people loose here.
Can you explain why not one of them knows much maths ? What’s your excuse for their ignorance ?
Sonic Youth
So you believe in absolutes. Then how do you know what you believe is absolutely true?
IT’S CALLED SARCASM, YOU FUCKING DISHONEST SACK OF SHIT.
#221 @sharculese
What grounds do you have to claim anything is ‘perverted’ with your worldview?
you might want to check your glasses; or your ability to read sarcasm. no one is “abandoning” atheism, it’s still the null hypothesis until you come up with some evidence.
I mean, imagine. We have a being who supposedly created the universe and knows everything and is the ground of everything, and yet he’s afraid of everything outside of the comfort zone of small-town Americans! Pretty remarkable, if you ask me.
(Apologies if I’m derailing, but I really don’t feel like playing nice with people who have a demonstrably harmful impact on the world.)
I’m not sure… What age are they? I mean, I would find them a list of real colleges, but I’m not sure they have sufficient knowledge to qualify.
@Matt Penfold Based on your previous statements I would like to know if you think there are any absolute truths?
onlybygrace
I apologise, I see someone else asked and you answered while I was away. I’m willing to except your example, it is impossible to be both inside and outside of a building at the same time. Why is god necessary to understand that though?
Hurls more popcorn!!!
Or even sticking within the misogynistic genocidal Abrahamic god genre, in what way is the Xian more “true” than Islam’s ? After all, they both claim to be the true .
–
Face it, y’all aren’t really here to have an honest conversation. You’re here to Witness Unto The Atheists, and make brownie points.
*sighing tiredly*
–
@insipidmoniker (#214): So are you denying that there are absolute laws of logic? Then there’s no point in debating.
By the way, you’re using the law of non-contradiction to conclude that our two worldviews can’t both be right.
Read up on paraconsistent logics, ignorant one.
In respect of what ?
Oh, and you forgot to admit your mistakes and apologise. Does Eric not teach you any manners ?
Did you really assign your ‘students’ to babble nonsense in response to snark for an hour so you could get a post-debate high five about how totally super smrt you are for managing to act completely po-faced against people who are really obviously mocking you?
Because that is infinitely sad.
If your asking if God can do something logically impossible, No.
Yes, as far as I am certain of anything (which is almost never 100%). For example, I know my mother is alive and at her job. This is something I would say I know as a fact.
New information (This part is key!) could disprove what I am fairly (but still not 100%) sure of. She could have gotten in a wreck or maybe her work day was called short due to some sort of localized emergency.
Now answer the question yourself.
Fuckface4rudeness, I am not here to debate you. You are merely a chess playing pigeon. (Ask someone else to explain the joke.)
I am here to mock you. You can go away, claiming that you were persecuted for you beliefs.
Truth is recorded on the pelt of a twelve-headed hypermole who endlessly orbits earth in his space helicopter.
Duh?
Then how do you know your knowledge to be true?
light is both a particle and a wave, but a wave is not a particle, and particles aren’t waves.
if you’re just going to pretend I answered the question how you wanted me to, instead of how I actually answered it, why are you even bothering typing? you can talk to yourself without that, you know?
@Matt Penfold You said that there are no absolute truths in mathematics, but do you think there are absolute truths in anything?
There is no point in debating presuppositionalist fuckwits, because they never engage in honest argument.
Wait, wait, wait. I thought God was omnipotent. That would mean he can do anything, logically possible or not.
So god is bound by the rules of logic?
Did he create them?
I was answering you question.
I’d like you to honestly consider why we’re here. We aren’t here to get “brownie points”. So far we’ve been called stupid, ignorant, and other far worse obscenities. And we don’t gain anything from that; it’s not about us.
We are here because we honestly care about where you spend eternity. Each of your lives is incredibly valuable, and I would urge you to consider your denial of God and its implications.
If we wanted to gain something, we wouldn’t come here. We are here because we care, and we want God to be glorified. :)
so much for omnipotent; but then, I guess that wasn’t in the definition.
anyway, are y’all ever going to pony up some evidence for that god of yours?
Monkey wrench:
If your god in willing to prevent evil, but unable, then he is not omnipotent.
If your god is able to prevent evil, but unwilling, then his is not beneficent.
Fly away with that, flying monkeys.
Why is there no point in debating without absolute laws of logic? And kindly stop speaking for me, even though the law of noncontradiction is demonstrably not absolute it remains a useful tool. I don’t discard my standard screwdriver because it won’t drive a torx bit.
God is not bound by anything. Yes He created all.
@217;
It is perfectly possible to discuss evidence concerning whether or not Voldemort lied even while knowing that he does not actually exist in the real world.
@218;
How do you know that you know that He knows?
@216;
Speaking a blatant lie forcefully does not make it true.
Finally something I can definitely QFT:
darling, we’re not the ones in denial.
So which bible is the Absolute Truth?
By your own admission, you said you believed in absolutes. Back to what I was saying, how do you know what you believe is absolutely true?
1peter315 ,
That you’re an ignorant fool? You’re not exactly hiding it.
this is not an English sentence. Don’t they teach you English at whatever school you go to?
So you’ve come here to make yourself feel good about trying to “save” people. You don’t honestly give a fuck about anyone here. You’re here to pretend you’re doing something to improve the world. You pretentious fuck. Just go back to liking things on facebook.
The only thing I get out of this exchange it this: I have no desire to follow your concept of god if it makes me as insipid and humorless as you lot of flying monkeys.
Fly! Fly, my pretties!
no darling, I didn’t. I merely defined words for you.
How’s that martyr complex working out for you? Because I can’t imagine you expected to have any success here. Ergo, you’re engaging in metaphorical self-flagellation.
@DPB Being fairly sure is not certain, in order to be 100% sure of anything you either, need to know everything, or you need to know someone who knows everything. Would you agree?
I can be certain of things because I know a God who cannot lie and knows everything and has revealed things through His Word. Therefore I have a basis for the truth I know.
Which bible is the Absolute Truth?
So, you worship a genocidal, lying, pathologically jealous, psychopathic sadist. Just as well it’s imaginary.
Try offering some and see what happens. Your “I could but I dwanna” isn’t going to make much headway, I’m afraid.
Yes, evidence is the issue. All we’ve seen is argument from ignorance, the unwarranted leap from “I don’t know” to magical, all-powerful being that did everything.
…and yet you spend it worrying about a non-existent hell that an unproven Daddy-figure may or may not sendyou to based on what naughty thoughts you think. I genuinely feel sorry for you godbots. You miss out on the wonders of this life while you’re wringing your hands about ‘the next’. Sad, wasted brains.
Msbd2,
How do you know that’s the truth?
So he cannot violate logical laws, but isn’t bound by them.
You don’t see the contradiction here?
gourd could violate the laws of logic if he wasn’t bound by them. Words DO mean things, you know. Well…you probably don’t.
Actually I do. Please don’t be so arrogant as to claim to know my motives. :)
Send in the iron chariots!
We are not here looking for persecution. We are here to have a conversation and so far no one has been able to oppose our beliefs.
If this were even remotely true you would be trying to do so without the prefabricated smarm, the cookie-cutter sophistry, or the weirdgross obsession with Defining Terms. But you’re not, so it isn’t.
@Jadehawk (#252): If I gave you evidence of the incredible design that we see, for example, in one single cell, you would shoot it down saying that unitnelligent random evolutionary mutations created that over time. Man can’t even create something that complex if he tries… it demonstrates intelligent design.
But you won’t accept that evidence.
If I argue that logic and math are proofs of God because they are eternal, universal, and unchanging, and their origin can’t be explained by “science,” you won’t accept that proof either.
We are at an impasse.
I am simply pointing out that your worldview cannot explain the world or how it works, and mine can.
I know what’s going to happen to me when I die, and you don’t.
How do you think you know that? how do you think you know that what you think is God, is neither a figment of your imagination, nor a demon? Either could give you a conviction of certainty, which is all you have.
I agree – of course it cannot lie, because it does not exist .
So you don’t believe in absolutes. Do you believe that to be absolutely true?
LOL
Earlier I said there’s next to nothing I know certainly.
I know I exist in some form. Whether I am real or some sort of simulation or something.
Now HOW do you know there is a God. How do you know he doesn’t lie? How do you know he knows everything?
Your answers are just to assert these things to be true.
@insipidmoniker Because God revealed it to us.
See me #266. QEmotherfuckingD.
cavarly4calvary said:
…then later:
Careful, Hovind. One of your kids is breaking the hivemind.
.
Fly, little monkey! Reach that horizon! Don’t look back…!
You assume that evidence gives us a source of truth, correct? But evidence is open to interpretation, so it really isn’t a very solid foundation. So what do you point to as a standard of truth? No one has really answered this question…
DPB, we do care, even more so we are here to glorify God. and defend our faith.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
We’ve already pointed out cases in the bible where your god lied, and stuff in the bible that describes the world in ways that are demonstrably wrong. How is that a basis for “truth?”
You have made a shit load of absolute statements with nothing but your hot air to support it.
You are not here to converse. You are here to dictate.
Dishonest fuckface.
#243 @sharculese
We aren’t here to make fun of your world views, we are asking serious questions and a serious conversation would be great. Sarcasm isn’t going to get us anywhere. However, if you believe in evolution, this kind of reply is the perfect example of what logic should be. We can be logical because we all know there is a God who installed the principles of logic. Without Him, all of our conversations would be meaningless.
Actually, the imperfections of the cell – such as its liability to infection, to cancer, to aging, are clear evidence that if it was created, it was not by something omnipotent.
So, godbots, here’s the thing. This discussion could be over really quickly if you could give us some evidence for your beliefs rather than arguing about definitions of words. So here’s what I propose:
If you have any evidence for the existence of your god, give it to us. You believe in him for a reason, right? Tell us one good reason why we should.
If you have any evidence that the Bible is anything more than a really old book, tell us.
If you have any reason what-so-ever that we should take anything you say seriously, let us know.
If you think you don’t have to do any of that, then why do you expect us to? Why do you expect other religions to? You can’t have it both ways.
But you know that is enough, because if a Jew, or Muslim, or the follower of any other faith, or even of other forms of Christianity said that to you, you would say they were wrong.
So if they can be wrong, you can as well.
Onlynygrace,
You’ve done nothing to demonstrate that logic and math are eternal and unchanging. When you’ve tried it has been pointed out that your examples have exceptions, meaning they are not absolute. You’ve presented no evidence whatsoever.
Ok, 5 more min.
yes, there will be High 5’s. You have failed to show how Atheism can account for truth. You have successfully abandoned atheism in an attempt to defend atheism.
this is not how the word “know” works.
You imagine a god, and you believe in one, which is different.
Oh honey, you have no idea.
* is NOT enough
@DPB How do you know that?
How do I know there is a God who doesn’t lie and knows everything? Because God revealed it to us. And because without God I can’t know anything.
Ogvorbis’ question repeated for emphasis. Waiting.
Msbd2,
How do you know god revealed it to you?
Yes, it IS about you. It’s about your stupid and ignorant words, and your stupid and ignorant ways of reasoning.
You /should/ gain a LOT from that: The realization that you’re wrong, or at least what you *think* you know is right could very easily be a lot of crap. You come on here to engage people who reject your presuppositionalist bullshit, and who haven’t drunk the Hovind Kool-Aid. You should gain the knowledge that spouting lies—to people who have heard them all before and have thought about them, deeply—is really a damned stupid way of living and thinking.
Gain *something* from this, and it IS about you.
You’re a liar, like Eric Hovind. Presuppositionalists never argue honestly.
No no no no no, kiddo. It demonstrates that you grapple onto the simplest explanation you can must because the real world is just too haaaaaaaaaard for you to handle, but I guarantee that’s about all it proves.
this is factually incorrect, but of course if you’re not going to read what people write, you won’t notice.
not that it matters, since actually the burden of evidence is on you, not on us.
@244;
We don’t nor do we pretend that we do. What we do instead is determine to the best if ability the probability that what we think is true really is true, and act accordingly.
And if you are actually honest with yourself you will realize that that is also what you do, and what all humans do and have always done, and that what you call “absolute” is merely a psychological crutch you made up in your head to comfort yourself against the terror of uncertainty and reassure yourself that you will be lucky and those decisions you make based on probabilistic uncertainty will turn out ok.
It is your security blanket.
Time to grow up and let go of childish things.
But you have been shown where your ‘god’ was lying in the bible. And you have been shown where your ‘god’ was just plain wrong. So where is your basis for truth?
And which bible does your truth come from?
So if this was not a class assignment, would you still be here?
You are here for a grade for a class given by a liar.
Oh come on! Really? I’ll use small words (or define them) and keep the sentences short
God is logically impossible. You can’t be omnipopent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing) at the same time. One precludes the other. That’s really basic stuff, if logic is a gift from god then you blokes missed the party.
You’re not doing a good job, then.
Your group only re-enforces the stereotype of Xians as clueless, liars or as innocently as I can put it, under the spell of a man who has convinced you that reality is a matter of “worldview”.
No one in their right mind will ever take you seriously.
Repeating a lie over and over again does not make it true, Eric.
if you ever get around to taking that English class, be sure to learn the difference between “believe in [not X]” and “don’t believe in [X]”
for our last comment the only true Bible is God’s Word. Thanks everyone for the discussion, we have to run.
peace out :)
If you actually did give a shit, you would come here and fucking know what atheism is.
If you were trying to change our minds you’d try to understand us first.
If you honestly worried, you’d stay longer than the class allowed.
You would provide evidence instead of demanding it.
You would speak to us as equals, not just homework assignments.
You would be honest, and not come to us with scripted questions.
You. Don’t. Really. Fucking. Care.
You aren’t special. You aren’t unique. You aren’t the first to do this. This is a fucking merit badge to you.
This isn’t arrogance, this is experience. You come, and then you go. You leave after your allotted time and shrug your shoulders, you learned nothing. This experience won’t mean anything to you in the long run. You just come here to speak AT us, not with us.
incorrect. evidence is what allows falsification.
How can you fucking stand to be who you are, you dishonest fuckface.
Oh, say “Hi” to daddy!
Render unto Caesar and all that bullshit.
Well that is really just too bad for you, then, darlin’.
Whoosh! That was the sound of retreat. Anyone expect any different? Only mildly entertaining in the end, though; bit of a waste of popcorn.
no, you’re really not. you’re asking sophomoric, silly questions
Hovind, the burden of proof is on you and your little asshole minions. But I guess we can’t expect you to grasp such a simple goddamn concept.
Sarcasm is a useful rhetorical tool. Get the fuck over it.
You’re a liar like your father, Hovind: no-one has abandoned atheism.
There is no solid and conclusive physical evidence your imaginary deity exits. You have nothing but delusions if you think you have anything other than a fallacious presupposition.
Which version of the bible would that be?
1peter315 – perhaps if you got around to trying to support your beliefs, instead of just saying ‘just because’, someone might think there was a point to opposing them.
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If I said all unicorns wear galoshes, would it be reasonable for me to ask you to find a unicorn that doesn’t wear galoshes, and show it to me or concede that all unicorns do indeed wear galoshes? You’d think I was being unreasonable, and you’d be right.
But you won’t accept that evidence. because that’s not evidence, that’s a just-so story. evidence would require a means to show that the null hypothesis can’t explain observable reality, not that you can make up a story that explains the evidence.
Oh god, lol.
Will there be cake at the pity party?
One hell of a discussion, that.
/that was sarcasm, kids
Thanks everyone so much for the conversation! I appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue.
I honestly believe that we all know there is a God. The issue is simply denial versus acceptance.
I can see this is a very emotional issue for many of you. Please consider all of this carefully, and the implications of rejecting God. I urge you to repent and trust Christ. Your eternal life is at stake.
You can mock this or say what you will, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are all accountable to God.
Thanks again for discussing these things! I hope that you have a great rest of your day.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”
If Man, the only known and factually demonstrated intelligent designer cannot produce something because it is too complex, that is NOT evidence for design, that is evidence that some things are TOO COMPLEX to be designed and are therefore NOT designed, but produced by some mechanism other than intelligent design.
To presuppose without evidence that there exists a designer superior to man is a leap of faith.
oh fun. since no bible in the word contains “gods word”, I’m glad you agree that no bible is the true bible
:-p
You really are a condescending sack of shit, apologia.
I’d like to extend the invitation to all of Hovind’s students to lurk here on this site regularly. Make use of Thunderdome. Ask your questions outside of class time, and take time to think about the responses you get.
.
If you actually cared about ‘Truth’ and knowledge, you wouldn’t read from Just One Book – you’d study things from all over and then come to a (gasp)informed conclusion.
.
If nothing else, it will familiarise you with TEH Atheist MINDSET!1!!?! and allow you to make improved arguments. Because, students? Judging by this performance, you desperately need the practice.
You have failed to show how Atheism can account for truth. irrelevant, since “truth” has not been defined by you, and in common English merely describes a social construct, i.e. something that doesn’t exist in nature but is a human idea. and one that has nothign to do with whether another social construct, “god”, has any basis in the natural world
@insipidmoniker Because God revealed it to us. God is the ultimate authority and the only way I can know anything is if He reveals it to me, any outside source does not have authority over God’s revelation. So the only way I know that God revealed something to me is because God revealed it to me through His word.
What a crock of bullshit from a professional liar an bullshitter. Show your deity really exists Eric. You’ve tried before, and failed spectacularly every time due to lack of ev idence. Presuppostition is not evidence, but rather a delusion, and you are the poster boy for delusional thinking.
@Nick Gotts (formerly KG) (#293): On the contrary, the cell’s imperfections show the curse of sin that is upon this world. God created the world to be perfect, then man chose to sin and brought God’s curse upon the earth.
That explains the depravity we see around us. You argue that a “good God” wouldn’t allow this stuff. But it is the result of our sinful choices.
We’re all gonna die someday. You know that just as well as I do.
We’re all going to stand before God, and we’ll have to face Him.
We all deserve hell, because we have transgressed His holy law (and yes, He does have a holy law, and you’ve broken it–so have I).
The only way out is to repent and trust in His son Jesus Christ for forgiveness. He died and was resurrected to pay for those sins.
Think about what we’ve said.
What’s gonna happen to you when you die?
Thanks everyone for the challenging debate.
Just to recap, logic is the gift of god therefore god, nyah, nyah, we win, also you athiests denied atheism. Did I miss anything?
Looks in bowl…throws remaining popcorn.
Wow, life the universe & everything perfectly explained in 20 minutes by zombie J’s little helpers. Reality waved away with an “absolute” magic wand… Opium of the masses indeed!
What kind of a delusional fuckwit can possibly call what just happened a conversation?
Given that I didn’t know about this exact, specific blog before today, no. :) But I certainly do tell people about God when I can.
apologia
Why would anyone care what a fuckwit like you believes?
Consider what carefully? None of you have made any point that’s worth considering; you’ve just repeated your stupid script.
The usual empty threats.
Sarcasm isn’t going to get us anywhere.oh, it gets me plenty of places
That circle you’re dancing around in must be making you dizzy.
do they get a doctorate for this?
Thanks everyone for the engaging conversation about the ONE TRUE GOD, this is absolutely true.
Romans 5:8
“But God demonstrated His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
How? It doesn’t exist, and your babble is a bookk of mythology fiction until you provide evidence otherwise. And hint, your testament isn’t evidence, but babbling bullshit.
We appreciate the opportunity you gave us to discuss openly and intellectually. We urge you to think about where your world views lead and to consider looking deeper into God and His promises of forgiveness to those who place their trust in Him. God Bless!
msbd2:
And this god revealed this to you how? Precisely, please.
This is a “just so” story. You are also combining element that have nothing to do with each other.
You are a muddled mess.
Which version of the bible is God’s Revealed Word?
Janine #332 said,
Aye that.
Makes me wonder what about their attitude of coming in with presupposationalist horse puckey somehow deserved more respect than a guffaw and a fresh, minty FU.
I know they thought they were speaking for some undefined, indefensible higher being, but I can’t help thinking any undefined, indefensible higher being would be sorely disappointed in them.
Msbd2,
How do you know that’s the only way you can know anything?
We responded intellectually. Your posts were mindless drivel without evidence, words strung together to make meaningless sentences. Intellectual discussion starts with evidence, you presented none.
assertion without evidence. again, what actually happens is that you imagine this to be true, and that you believe it. it’s an evidence-free assertion and therefore cannot actually be used in an argument as evidence for anything.
Why can’t their god glorify himfuckingself? You’d think he’d at least pick out better representatives than these shitstains.
God told me to skin you alive.
onlybygrace,
I’m so sorry. Really. I’m sorry that you have such a low opinion about yourself and people generally… your loved ones. I hope you’ll realize how foolish you have been and start living a happy life free of unreasonable guilt. Good luck!
You massive, lying pile of shit.
I thought it was arrogance to say what other people are thinking?
Why are you immune from that rule of etiquette?
Because you aren’t allowed to play victim?
PZ, Thanks for this opportunity.
See ya at the next reason rally! :-)
I honestly believe that we all know there is a God. – apologianobody “knows” any such thing; plenty of people imagine this, and believe it, though. And not all of them. So your belief that everybody “knows” god is fractally wrong.
Nerd, I will not make the claim that I responded intelligently. I was here to mock them.
Wow. Unbelievable!
“Today in class, we’re all going to fire up our laptops and post presuppositionalist drivel on an atheist site –only for an hour, mind you– and then declare victory and run away.”
So, what’s on for the rest of the day, besides fingerpainting and macaroni bracelets?
It really is amazing how much Christians hate their “loved ones”
I wonder if it is at all possible to love people and gourd at the same time.
onlybygrace:
etc. etc. ad infinitum…
So, who told you this? How was this information ‘revealed’ to you? Precisely, please.
fuck, why do i suck at blockquoting so much right now.
nobody “knows” any such thing; plenty of people imagine this, and believe it, though. And not all of them. So your belief that everybody “knows” god is fractally wrong.
If you encounter something that claims to be god’s word, how do you know that it is truly god’s word and not something else trying to deceive you?
Fuck, did I really just waste an hour of my life on this?
That is an intellectual response to pure drivel.
too late, I guess hovind feks off rejoicing but let me address a couple of things
When you come in here proclaiming that a “scripture is eternal truth and god doesnt lie” you are in a self contained closed circular logic belief system. That is why I used “your” scripture and “your” theologians to show you that your statement was wrong.
Apologia
As noted above, I accepted your argumental premise and stayed within your closed circular logic belief system to address your points. I would have taken your evidence, examined then rebutted as needed. And there is two errors of fact in your quote
Now hovind, quit stealing money off of these credulous students and allow them to do their own thinking.
So you admit that you do not care about any of us here but are only chasing a grade for a lying teacher. At least you were honest that time.
But considering how many different versions of the bible have been, and are, in use, how do you know which bible is the actual Truth about the One True God?
And god bless to you.
(Where I grew up (bible belt), that phrase did not have a friendly meaning.)
Thank you everyone for the discussion, and for being polite in our conversations. I pray that you all will think about the things brought up today, everyone knows that God exists and therefore the choice is to either accept or reject Him. Romans 3:23 says “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, John 3:16 says that “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” Acceptance and repentance brings about eternal life with God. Rejection results in death and eternity in hell. I pray that you will consider this. Thank you for the conversation.
apologia #329 wrote:
Sorry I am coming very late to what looks like an extended conversation. But I’m curious about what you mean here.
Do you think the evidence for God’s existence is so obvious and overwhelming that there is no need for “faith” at all? People who claim to not believe in God are confusingly perverse, like people who would say that they don’t see the sun, or believe in the existence of trees?
Or do you think that the rational perceptual evidence is lacking, sure — but all humans have a sort of ESP when it comes to God, some sort of invisible connection of mind-meeting-Mind, so to speak?
I’d like to ask msbd2 the same question. I mean, YOU are the ultimate authority in deciding that you have had a revelation from God. Other people have been wrong on that subject. How did you become infallible? How do you know?
Thanks.
You are doing your flying monkeys any favors.
But I guess you need to make a living.
Being a grifter would be a step up for you.
True, Amphiox; I’ve heard that the hand of Satan is everywhere *nods sagely* *checks under bed*
discuss openly and intellectuallythat’s just sad. they probably really do think this was “intellectual” conversation.
such waste of perfectly good brains is just tragic.
And after my long absence I return to grant salvation in my word. I do in fact know everything, because I am god, but I just choose to not reveal it because it would harm your free will. WORSHIP ME!
dobbshead, it was entirely appropriate that you were absent and silent during the time I was claiming you were the all-knowing, all-powerful being that I worshipped.
repeating this lie won’t make it any more accurate.
sad how they think the boring old canards they’ve brought here are something new to anyone here.
God is omnipotent, right? So could God, in His infinite power, microwave a burrito SO HOT that even He could not eat it?
O.O
You’re welcome, god-botherers.
Judging from the timing as each comes to say thank you, I’d say Hovindtheliar is handing out grades to all.
And yet none even responded as to which bible contains The Absolut Truth. Pity.
In what way is this not hoping to earn brownie points with this alleged god of yours?
–
*nodding*
Yup. It’s the difference between “truth” and “truthiness”.
–
Assertion. Citation needed. Also specificity as to WHICH god of the millions that humanity has dreamed up over the years; with reference to a specific holy book. Be precise in your answer, please.
I wonder if he failed the one who said god isn’t omnipotent.
seriously; creationist younguns are probably the saddest kind of reality-deniers. there’s just no meat on those chewtoys, and I just end up feeling sad for the forcefully athrophied brainpower.
Eric Hovind:
Did they all get gold stars? Or inflated A’s?
Beatrice:
:D
I wonder if he gave extra credit to the one who said “I got these ones to admit they’re not Atheists!!!”
My absence was quite tasty too… nom nom nom kebob.
…New Apologetics Theory: Jesus is really just having a really awesome lunch, which is why he hasn’t returned!
well that was unsatisfying.
And yet none even responded as to which bible contains The Absolut Truth. why, the real one, of course. d’uh. [/sarcasm]
the idea of multiple, competing and amalgamated versions of the biblical texts probably was never explained to these poor, intellectually starved kids.
cavalry4calvary is getting a regulation plumbing-line beating tonight, sure enough! Or would he count as a rebellious child, to be taken before the city gates and stoned? Curious minds want to know.
Srsly though, Hovind-kids, mockery is not a beating. Mockery is a learning-tool. Stick around on this site. Post more, without Hovind breathing down your necks and glaring at your screens.
.
The Thunderdome thread is always open, to everyone, regardless of topic or question. You’re very welcome to stay and discuss this more, as long as you stick to Thunderdome.
.
I recommend that you read the FAQs as to site-etiquette. Maybe one day you’ll put aside childish things. Hope springs eternal.
msbd2 #372 wrote:
Okay, here is the problem with referring to this as a “conversation.” In a conversation, you have to grant the other person a minimal common ground, assume a little bit of respect for another person who is not lying and is making an honest error.
If you honestly think we are NOT making honest errors, then how do you think you can persuade us to change our minds if we think we ARE sincere? Think about it. A Muslims could tell you that you are wrong about Christianity — but could he really persuade you that you only became a Christian to avoid the responsibility of praying towards Mecca 5 times a day? If he told you that you are already a Muslim and just being perverse, then who is he really talking to? You? Or himself?
You cannot persuade another person that they’re not sincere. You can only go “AHA! I caught you!”
“Aha, gotcha” is not a conversational opener. But it is a conversational closer. If this is your final taunt before you log off the computer, you need to re-think what you’re really doing — and contrast it with what you meant to do.
There is nothing to think about. You have not given us food for thought. Because you didn’t catch us lying.
Even if we’re mistaken, we are not lying.
Choose a new strategy. You could not choose a worse one.
Oh, I’m sure of that. Which is why I kept asking. Maybe one of them will ask Hovind. And after Eric yells at them, maybe they will start looking into the history of the bible. And then, when they discover what abslute bollocks it is, they will join us. And after that, giant winged Bambiraptors will fly backwards out of me arse.
@Portia,356
Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.
Aw geez, is it over already?
Potshots:
And I would urge you consider your denial of…nah, forget it. I could posit the existence of some similarly omniscient omnipotent omni-whatever being named, say, Todd, who happens to agree with my personal convictions (mushrooms are not a foodstuff, for example), and I’d have just as much claim to threaten you with eternal damnation as you do, but I suppose your clown teacher would just use that to claim that I’m not really an atheist because he’s too dim to understand sarcasm, or the use of hypotheticals in an argument. I suppose your religion doesn’t really foster such higher order thinking skills, or subtlety. Or the ability to read and comprehend a paragraph more than three lines in length, so I don’t really know why I’m still writing.
Assuming the conclusion, yet again.
Woah, hold on there. Because man*, who is the only being currently known in our physical existence to be demonstrably capable of intelligent design, cannot create life, then life must have been intelligently designed? Sorry, doesn’t work that way.
* Patriarchal language noted
Too bad you just made him sound like a child’s imaginary friend. Par for the course.
Why does God almost exclusively reveal his wisdom to the children of Christian parents?
It’s like talking to a Chatty Cathy doll.
Keep chasing that tail.
I hope that Hovind’s lesson has at least taught you how your myths appear to people who weren’t indoctrinated into them.
I’m just glad that God revealed to us how many legs insects have. Saves us the trouble of counting them.
Better imagination than anything out of Reve-batshitcrazy-alation…
So, as I said, you worship a psychopathic sadist – which makes you disgusting scumbags, even though your psychopathic sadist is an imaginary one.
How many legs do they have?
(/me reads the whole, pointless, HovindBot/Pharyngula exchange)
Siiiiiiggggghhhh… The sad thing is that there are millions more of those dullards likes these out in America… And they vote.
Oops… Sorry for the redundant phrasing of my last post, I just got up, and I groggily broke my rule about posting before caffinating myself.
Even if your imaginary god did know everything, how can you know that you understand “His Word” correctly? Are you infallible?
Revelation is a form of communication. When god is communicating His Werdz to you, how can you be sure that your understanding of His Message* is accurate? You say you are certain, I want you to justify your claim to being a perfect and unerring interpreter of concepts being communicated by another agent.
*I love random capitalization as much as the next person.
This is just pathetic. Sorry, not everyone believes in invisible magic men in the sky.
@ A.R
Still from the new Pharyngula Movie: Picture linky. (Yes an Xwing – you don’t expect originality as well? Actually it is only the wing. One wing. These things take time.)
@ goddists
We have had the whole “relevance of religion” discussion before. I really was arguing your case for a while. ¹ But I have had to reconsider the whole issue of what it is in religions that could contribute anything. I think it boils down to this: that religiousity only has relevance inasmuch as it provides myths. Its major liability ensues when it goes beyond this simple mandate – when it tries to make truth claims.
Any religion can supply the myth. Further (as we noted) any storyline, sufficiently developed, can do just as much (our example was the influence on Science Fiction on the development of the space shuttle). We noted also that there is no requirement that the story (religious or secular) in any way or form needs to be true. Essentially all that is required is that the story must create within society a shared narrative that is concurrently intensely personal. It can thence form a framework for action within society – both as a co-ordinated and an individual impetus. It must inspire. It need not be credible.
The above is pretty much the only value I have been able to discern in religions. I trust you may add to my meagre offering.
…
¹ What has happened to the likes of William James (even as an unbeliever!), advancing arguments on behalf of the religious? Where is something we can sink our teeth into? The current crop of goddists/apologists is less than pathetic. I am almost tempted to show them all how it is done, rather have to endure such weak arguments from the religiously fettered..
Well fuckity fuck fuck.
I missed the whole thing.
On another tentacle, it was repetitive and stupid.
and sad.
Those poor children.
It amazes me that anyone could write this without falling over laughing.
You know what?
Fuck you. Fuck your pious bullshit, fuck your false concern, and most of all, fuck your empty threats.
Do you want to know why this is an “emotional” issue for us (as if you fellows were paragons of Vulcan-like rationality)? Because many of us have lived lives of real pain because of the backwards teachings of the various churches. Gay people forced into the closet for the love of this supposed god. Women forced into lives of servitude for the love of this supposed god. Minds stunted and made fearful of pleasure, of knowledge about this great big world we live in, of people from other cultures, of everything not deemed acceptable by authority figures.
I’m a straight, white male from middle-class suburbia raised in a fairly mild Catholic family. I got off easy. Many of the rest of us cannot say the same. But we’re all together here on this blog to celebrate each other, to celebrate real, tested knowledge, to celebrate life. Life as we know it, life as we experience it, not pie-in-the-sky promises. We stand and fall on our own merits, and the real consequences of our actions on the other people with whom we live.
We got it all. We’ve seen how tawdry and small the stories you’re selling really are. We’re not interested.
chigau,
You really didn’t miss anything worthwhile.
It was sad, though.
Seriously, how old were these people? I called them kids and they sounded like kids, but really?
Dammit! I missed the creobots!
Msbd2 @267:
You’ve already been shown multiple examples of your god lying. Why are you still clinging to the demonstrably false assertion that he cannot lie ?
Moreover, why have none of you kids shown one shred of proof your god exists?
How do you know the baby killing god of the bible you worship (remember boys and girls, if you cause a worldwide flood, lots of babies and fetuses will die) is real? How do you know Zeus isn’t creator? Or Odin?
You don’t have much time left. Instead of asking silly questions that you think we’ve never heard, GIVE US YOUR EVIDENCE.
I spent so long typing up a reply that the godbots have already left. I’m glad they’re gone, but I’m going to post it anyway. I apologize in advance for how long the post is and for the threadrupt.
Darn, and we never got on to the good question like when was Jesus determined to be divine?
325 AD
If he wasnt divine before then, what was he?
what is the difference between ‘Christotokos’ and Theotokos’ and why is it important?
Why were the ‘Quartodecimans’ attacked?
what does ‘dyophysitic’ mean and why did it take 451 years to figure it out?
Why do you worship a cross when he was sacrificed on a “stauros”?
Inquiring minds might answer those questions and learn a little bit about religion and faith is quite different than religion and fact
You want me to consider what my denial of your non-existent god means? Really? It means that I believe in one-fewer untrue thing. It means that I am not so delude as to think that I’m going to live on after my death. When I die, I cease existing. I will be gone forever. My life is a little and mostly insignificant speck in the cosmic perspective. The only thing I have is this life and this Earth, the only support I can depend on is myself and the people around me, and the only way things will ever be better is if I make them that way. Those are the consequences of a universe without god. They aren’t so bad, once you get used to them, and in fact I find them rather inspiring. More importantly, they are based on evidence and truth rather than wishful thinking or ancient superstition.
—
But let me grant you your premise here for a second. What if your god did exist? (He doesn’t. This is a hypothetical thought-experiment. I am not saying he actually exists, so don’t you dare take me out of context.) If your god existed exactly the way you think he does, how would that effect my views on the afterlife? Let me tell you.
If your god were real, that means that he would have create the earth an all the creatures on it. That means that, if he wanted to, he could have made all creatures vegetarians. He could have minimized the painful and traumatic deaths of literally millions of animals all over the world, but he chose not to. Do you know about the wasps in Ichneumonoidea? They are parasites, laying their eggs inside living caterpillars to hatch and eat their poor host animal from the inside out while it’s still living. If you go existed, he could have chosen not to create them, but he didn’t. He could have written the laws of the universe in such a way that no animal would ever have to go through extreme pain or suffering. Populations could have been self-limiting and starvation could have never existed. The world could be a damn good place, but apparently, if your god existed, he didn’t want that. Someone who can chose to prevent suffering and chooses not to is not the kind of person I would want to worship.
I know what your answer to that will be. You think that Adam and Eve were real, and that they let sin and death into the world. I argue that no-one should be punished for the sins of their ancestors, and that what Adam and Eve supposedly ate should have nothing to do with the rights and privileges of their children. Anyone who practices that kind of justice is not someone I would willingly worship. But even given your reasoning, Adam and Eve are not animals, and there is no reason why your god would have had to punish every other creature for the faults of humanity. Collateral damage is not a necessary thing, especially for the being that can create the rules who can do anything. No, your god, if he existed, decided that pain and suffering for every creature was how he wanted his universe to work.
But, you will say, without pain and suffering, how can we have free will? Well, your angels have free will (obviously, since Lucifer was able to rebel against God in the first place) and they live in Heaven without pain or suffering. In fact, according to you, all the souls in Heaven will be without pain or suffering, so does that mean that free will doesn’t exist there? If so, if heaven is a place that you want to go even though it has no free will, then clearly free will isn’t all that important. If not, if there is still free will in Heaven, then clearly we don’t need pain and suffering in order to have free will. Even if you disagree with me on this point, I think an argument could be made that the amount of suffering in the world could decrease substantially without our free will being in danger. If not, then medicine, housing, plumbing, etc, all negatively impact our free will, and must therefore be stopped. No, your god, had he existed, could have made human nature a little nicer, a little more tolerant, a little more cooperative, than he did when he supposedly first created us. He could have made the world have more than enough resources to go around so that we did not have to fight for anything. That was well within his power, being the creator of all things, but apparently he decided that having a peace-loving humanity wasn’t in the plan. Apparently he needed to make us the kind of creature that is often territorial, violent, selfish, and xenophobic. Again, anyone that could have lessened suffering and chooses not to is not the kind of person I would willingly worship.
Your god, your religion, has taken part in many things that I find morally reprehensible. The subjugation of women, genocide, racism, slavery, the squelching of science, the persecution of scientists, and the mistreatment, torture, and death of people who disagree, all of these have been justified by scripture. Your god, had he existed, could have popped his head out of the clouds and said “Hey, that’s not what I want you to do,” at any moment, but he didn’t. No, he sat by and watched it all happen. He, supposedly omnipotent, let suffering occur in his name. If someone so much as injured a person in my name, I would be furious, but apparently war, genocide, misogyny, and all manner of evil in his name are just fine. Again, that is not the kind of person I would want to worship. In fact, that’s the kind of person I would actively fight against.
Lastly, your god, if you are right, judges people after they die, and sends them to either Heaven or Hell. If they are not up to his standards, they spend an eternity in a fiery pit of molten brimstone. Your god believes in eternal punishment for the crimes of an incredibly finite life. He believe in torture, something that most human beings even know is wrong. That is barbaric and utterly unworthy of my devotion.
Not only that, but he doesn’t even give everyone enough information to make what he considers the right choices. If believing in him is necessary to get into heaven, then he should make it reasonable to believe in him. He should show that other religions are false. He should show that he exists through more than a poorly-written old book and some loony theology. He should write out “God exists and his name is Yahweh” in the stars so that people, people not born into Christianity, people who are looking for answers, people who want some sort of evidence, cannot reasonably come to any other conclusion. He should make it so that everyone can believe in him and know the rules, and the only ones who break them do so willingly, in full knowledge. As it is, your god is making life a big test, but he isn’t even telling us the subject. Some people are studying English their whole lives, only to get to the classroom and discover that it’s a calculus test. That is just wrong. It’s disingenuous in every way and entirely not worthy of being worshiped.
“What if God is real,” theists often ask me, “and you’ve been wrong all along?”
If someone came up to me tomorrow with absolute undeniable truth that the Christian god is real, I would believe it. I want to know the truth, no matter how distasteful it is. But just believing in your God wouldn’t make me worship him. People living Soviet Russia may have known that Stalin existed, but they certainly didn’t worship him. No, if your God did exist, I would rage against him for all the wrong he has done, all the suffering he has let occur, all the things he has royally fucked up. If your afterlife really did exist, I would refuse to go to heaven. I would proudly go down to Hell, middle fingers raised high at that tyrant you call a god. I would rather have an eternity of punishment than be complicit in your god’s evil.
Don’t try to scare me with the threat of Hell. It is certainly a better choice than your Heaven.
I’m framing this one. I get a headspin every time I read it
Is this a real argument, or a proof of circumference theory?
A bit of circular reasoning involving god and the bible.
Some argument from ignorance.
Demanding that atheism explain everything, rather than being a rejection of their unevidenced claims.
Quoting scripture at us.
And, when all that failed, claiming that we don’t really believe what we’re saying.
And that we’re going to hell for it.
I can haz PhD? I really think I’ve mastered the material.
suggested reading http://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_1.html
bargearse: Headspin indeed. I can’t even.
—
erichovind
Oh, FSM, why???
Even this, their ultimate threat by proxy, is complete nonsense. Pretending, for a moment, that their sociopathic godmonster exists, I could see threatening people with death. “Oooh, icky people who won’t get on their knees, you get to die, no heaven for you!”
Obviously though, as sociopathic godmonster wouldn’t be satisfied with that, the icky people don’t just die, do they? Nope, they get an eternal life too.
Do none of you with the pickled brains ever stop to consider the non-stop parade of stupid contradictions you parrot daily? You do have a brain – try, just once, to use the damn thing.
blogofmyself @ 412, post bookmarked for October Molly nomination.
@ blogofmyself #412
Impressive. Hope they’re still lurking and read it.
Theists ask such bad questions. Atheists ask better questions.
Portia@369:
Think happy thoughts.
Think of DarkInfant :)
Welp, it looks like Hovind’s poor chumps have left, at least if I’m as caught up as I think I am.
Here’s the interesting thing though: out of 20 of them, what odds do you give that at least one will be back? Quietly? Maybe never telling anyone about it, feeling guilty, but incapable of NOT being fascinated by the questions tapping at the back of their mind?
For that person, I wanted to say this.
Hi. Actually, I agree with you. And that idea was one of the things that led me inexorably to atheism over a period of five or so years. Because our lives are incredibly valuable, each of us has the opportunity, maybe even the obligation, to choose for ourselves where we want them to go and what we want to do with them.
We’re not getting a magical fairyland second start after we die. When we die, that’s it. How could I waste the only life I have in chasing rules cooked up from the sort of, kind of, words of people so long dead even their civilization has crumbled away? Why would I let Kent Hovind, or the Pope, or a rabbi or imam or Mormon “prophet” tell me how I should think and feel? Why would I live inside a box someone else wants to build for me when I can construct a road to walk on?
Don’t feel guilty. People who want to control you will tell you that Satan is tempting you. They will want you to engage fear rather than love of life, and love of yourself. Don’t be afraid to question, and don’t be afraid of answers, and don’t ever be so afraid of anything that you lock yourself in a box to shut the world out. You’re going to be okay and a good person even if you don’t follow a set of religious rules; lots and lots and LOTS of people are. In fact a lot of us are happier and better people than when we tried to follow those rules. Your life does not have to be determined by fear and guilt.
I don’t hang out in the Thunderdome, so I most likely won’t even see replies to this post. I have zero interest in debating anything about it, and if you try to engage me in debate about it, you will be wasting your time. I’m just leaving it here as food for thought.
Ha, thanks Tony : )
blogofmyself @412
How I wish Hovind’s hostages could read that, there’s nothing quite like a line in the sand.
And just in case any of you little atrophied godlings are hanging about, here’s a book recommendation (it’s all that God’s word you’re so fond of) – Drunk With Blood: God’s Killing in the Bible by Steve Wells.
Give it a read and try thinking.
Hovind’s students will come back at some point; lunch, or after their classes finish, or if they’re still interested in seeing the results of their comments a few days later. Curiosity’s a harmless, wonderful thing.
.
I’d like to ask them what Hovind said to them after the online session, as an activity round-up for the day; how he summarised the learning aims, ran through the class experience during the session, asked about the students’ thoughts on what they had learned, and then closed the class with a reiteration of the fulfillment of the learning aims and their results. I’d like to know how he phrased their ‘victory’ – for I am sure that he called it a victory, correct? You ‘won’ the session. Hi-fives all over. Jolly good, class, A*s all over. Break for lunch.
.
Did he explain to you why you won, if he has claimed that you did, in fact, ‘win’? Did he go through, point by point, explaining the rules of how this argument is supposed to go, highlighting mistakes, awarding strikes for foul language and incivility, displaying that Atheists can only ask questions, not demonstrate 100% that there is no god, and therefore that was why you ‘won’.?
.
I’d be interested in your answer, and a demonstration of Hovind’s effective paedagogy. How he prepares you for sessions like this, gets you ready to put your points across, your hard-learned arguments and surety of the ineffability of god’s love.
.
And then I’d like to ask you:
.
What do you care more about?
.
Winning the argument? or finding the truth in the argument?
.
Saying the right phrase, over and over if necessary, to score a check on your pre-prepared checklist? or listening to what the other person is saying, and thinking slowly and seriously about whether or not they made an effective counter to your phrase the first time around?
.
Passing your class, and pleasing your teacher, by saying the ‘right’ things and relaying on, sometimes word for word, what you’ve been taught? or taking your teachings, looking at them from every angle, finding out what others think about them, researching the origins of your teachings, looking up what and how the very first fathers of your teachings (there will be no mothers) thought when that faith was fresh and new and contextually relevant?
.
Curiosity is one of the greatest attributes you will ever possess. A desire to not blindly believe, but to test, turn around and about, bite, investigate, consider in minute detail, before making a pronouncement. It is not enough to feel. To live a fulfilled life, you have to explore – to compare – to cogitate.
.
Follow the evidence. Be curious. Explore, compare and cogitate. It’s the best gift you could ever give to yourself. Please don’t just rely on ‘they told me’ and ‘I feel’. Your life will be all the smaller and darker for it.
looks around. hmm.
missed the party.
blogofmyself:
Hear, hear.
Beatrice:
The pi=3 quote from the bible.
Also, kristinc at #442.
Sastra @420:
Use their language: atheists ask GOODER questions.
That was it? That was the invasion? A couple of vacuous, lazily written assertions, and then they’re done?
Apparently. But hopefully not absolutely.
Damn, I missed the party :(
But I have brownies and they are divine
I can believe in the brownie
Those poor kids. He’s taught them a set of scripts and told them that if they follow those scripts that no atheist can “win” against them. You could just feel how excited they were to talk to real atheists and prove how strong they were.
Kids, just in case some of you manage to get to a computer where you are allowed to come back here (I’m sure both school and home computers are “protected” from this site) there is something I want to say.
It isn’t even a matter of whether or not there is a god. Hovind is stealing money from your parents. I am sure he is telling them that you will gain a great armor against the evil that is in the world. The trouble is, you are not in the world. You are in a bubble, a bubble carefully constructed by your parents, your church, and that conman Hovind to keep you from learning. When you get a glimpse of the real world, with real people in it, most of whom will have no idea what you are talking about when you start off with “logic” and “revealed truth”, one of three things will happen to you.
1) You will retreat as rapidly as possible and start constructing a bubble of your own and make sure your children stay inside it as long as possible. You will be afraid of reality and deny it at every turn. You will lose so much, but you will never know that.
2) The difference between what you have been taught and what you see around you will be too painful for you. Drugs, alcohol, sex, flight into a completely different but equally reality-denying religion. Eventually, if you survive, either 1 or 3.
3) You will start to think. You will actually try to learn something. At first it will be because you want to prove how wrong we are. Then if there is even the tiniest sliver of intellectual honesty that has not been metaphorically or literally beaten out of you, you will change your mind. You won’t necessarily stop believing in God. Most Christians believe in God and also accept evolution. But you will no longer be ignoring everything that we have learned about reality in the last 200 years. The world will be full of wonder.
How do I know this? Ask the people here. Most of us were not born into atheist families. We made the journey out of religion. Some of us made the journey all the way from where you are right now. That is why the little verbal tricks Hovind told you and your parents were the way to protect you from reality don’t work here. We’ve seen them. We figured out what nonsense they are a long time ago.
I hope you figure that out too. Don’t blame your parents. They are honestly trying to protect you. Most of them are #1s, a few may be #2s that became #1s. They are being cheated out their hard-earned money by a liar, a conman.
That should make you mad.
Seems so. No interest in discussion, just scattershot thoughtless ‘witnessing’ and a claim by Hovind that we abandoned atheism.
I wonder how that works…I still be an atheist over here.
Emrysmyrddin@426:
Hear hear. Great post.
Giliell:
Divine they may be, but they are absolutely guaranteed to be HELL coming back out…
Is that all there is to a godbot?
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is
I’d like to suggest that next time Hovind does this, we ignore the crap he’s told them to spout and really talk to the kids, even though they won’t dare talk back. Consider that such events are probably the only time these kids have some contact with the outside world.
Keep it very short. Keep it friendly (to the kids, not to Hovind). Keep it honest. I’m thinking of writing up a few paragraphs to save for next time.
Ever since Christians decided Jesus didn’t really mean it when he said all that shit about rich people and sewing camels, getting into heaven’s been easier than getting a payday loan, though with a significantly higher cost to one’s personal integrity.
@chas:
Coyne’s blog?
“Bike-riding kitteh”
a bit late, but yeah… exactly.
what better place to send Hovindites?
O hai!
Most of the upper teeth of that Tyrannosaurus are too small! One would think that artists would be prone to exaggerating them; but – like with the sickle claws of, say, Velociraptor – many of them just can’t grasp how big they were and understate them.
kthxbai
Win.
Jadehawk:
1peter315:
Jadehawk:
1peter315:
Jadehawk:
1peter315:
*Facepalm*
It’s like Who’s On First – Ultimate Stupidity Edition.
Alright, I know there is a lot of slash fiction. Mostly, they play on people’s kinks while using established characters. Well, the names of characters.
(The couple of Buffy slashes that I tried to read, well, none of the characters spoke or acted like the Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Spike, Anya, Cordy or anyone one else that I recognized.)
But sometimes, ones enters the realm of the truly horrific. And being on the slightly sadistic side, I have to share the fucking pain.
Or, as Rob Bricken wrote; For the record, this is a story by Mr. Five, and was sent to me by Kinaras, who I will never, ever forgive.
If you end up hating me for this, I completely understand and cannot blame you.
While I could reply with evidence to your claims, evidence isn’t really the issue here is it? You wouldn’t accept evidence even if it was offered, because you presuppose that God does not exist.
Projection. pure, unadulterated, projection.
bloody child abuse is what Hovind is doing. Someday, it will be called like it is.
o dear jeebus wat did i just read
.
I know slash and that ain’t slash
Emrysmyrddin, feel my pain!
yes, there will be High 5′s. You have failed to show how Atheism can account for truth. You have successfully abandoned atheism in an attempt to defend atheism.
nice burden shifting.
YOU are the door-door salesman that came HERE to peddle your wares.
Who failed to defend your version of an imaginary deity?
why that would be YOU.
@Janine
This is the true beauty of the internet. No matter how messed up you are, you can be assured that there’s somebody out there who’s even more fucked.
If course, most of them aren’t quite insane enough to write ET fanfic about it.
Janine:
That was . . .
Er . . .
Holy batshit! Somebody actually wrote that? (The ET/Elliot sex story)
You owe me a whole new apatite.
LykeX, that was not just ET fanfic. I am scarred for life!
Not once have I even wondered about ET’s genitalia. And what happens there, well…
*collapses in a corner, murmuring random syllables*
Janine.
You’ve been very bad.
That was cruel.
There is plenty of evidence that could convince me God exists. I don’t know why Christians are so keen on insisting that atheists are incapable of accepting any evidence.
Here are a few examples. These are my personal things–others may think these are insufficient and insist that they might be the work of an alien with a bad sense of humor.
1. The stars spontaneously form themselves into the words “There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet (in Arabic, natch).”
2. If Christians who prayed to get well actually got well.
3. If when people prayed sincerely “Dear God tell me what religion to follow” a 3 by 5 index card with MORMON written on it dropped out of the air and landed at their feet.
I can be cruel
I don’t know why
Janine:
Now if someone was to come up with some T.S. Elliot/ET fanfic . . .
Thanks Hovind, I’m now stupider for having read your students remarks on this blog, bainwashing is an art form and you are quite proficient at it. Cult much.
Dear diary. Today I learned two new words; ass-vagina and dick-womb. In other news, I’m wondering if electrocuting myself will erase the memory of this day’s event? It’s certainly worth a shot.
Elliot Gould/ET.
Elliot Smith/ET.
Eliot Ness/ET.
Send the Hovindites over to the Elliot/ET story. If that doesn’t burst their protective bubble, not much will.
Well, except for actual reality but they ain’t gettin’ much a that.
That ain’t reality
.
That be…genocide
.
*riff*
Audley, Aaw. That’s quite the head of hair Darkling is sporting. Looks like mum already. :D
If Heaven is for people like Hovind, I’d rather be in Hell, simply because that’s where all the cool people are.
@458: How about “throat pussy”? Courtesy of several fan-translated hentai comics.
First off, I am definitely looking at blogofmyself @ 412 for a Molly nomination.
On the off chance that any of Hovind’ ‘students’ are still reading, I would also like to expand on an idea or two from that post. It occurs to me that the Abrahamic god, as depicted in the judeo-christian scriptures, is a spectacularly nasty piece of work. Indeed, perhaps the single most evil character ever conceived of by humans, with attributes associated with abusers, in so far as as it sets its victims impossible goals, and then uses their failure to acheive them as a premise for abuse. The christian god is a celestial card sharp, a trickster god far worse than the likes of Loki from the Nordic pantheon.
My evidence for this? Well, we need look no further than the bible itself. If we grant, for a moment and in the name of the sake of argument, that the bible can be viewed as the authority that theists claim it is, then we find that according to this book of fairy tales, Yahweh is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. It literally knows and sees all, and is responsible for the creation of all things. That sort of implies that god knew what was going to happen before it happened. But then we run into the war in heaven – god creates Lucifer, who later rebels with assorted other angels. A rebellion that, since it was being fought by beings that were less than omnipotent against a being that was, was obviously doomed to failure before it began. But if god is omniscient, he must have known, even before he created Lucifer, that this angel was going to rebel, and that the rebellion in question would fail, and that he would then condemn Lucifer to hell to act as his personal torturer for when the humans came along. God must have known this, and yet he let it all happen. He set Lucifer up, and he did it in order to have a personal torturer in chief he could use against the humans (that he must already have known he was going to create) after the Fall (that he must have already have known was going to happen).
Then we get to the Garden of Eden. God leaves the tree of knowledge of good and evil right there, in front of Adam and Eve – beings that are supposed to be guileless and innocent. Why do that, when he could have placed the tree elsewhere, out of reach? Why claim that the tree is so dangerous, and then do nothing to secure it from Adam and Eve? It is like a parent telling a child not to eat some potentially toxic pills, and then leaving them in a dish within the child’s reach, and leaving the room. Whose fault is that? The child’s? Or the negligent adult who didn’t observe basic precautions for the child’s safety? Why is god – an all powerful, perfect being, remember – held to a lower standard than a human parent or guardian? But just leaving the tempatation right there is not enough. Things don’t really kick off until Lucifer pops back up on the scene, having infilitrated the garden of eden in the form of a snake, in order to tempt Eve.
But wait a second; Lucifer infilitrates the garden? Here’s a question for all the budding theologians – how? How does Lucifer sneak past an omnisicent, omnipresent god? If god knows all, how can he be fooled by a little light shape shifting? The only answer appears to be that he can’t, meaning that god was well aware that Lucifer was slithering into the garden, and that he let it happen. He allowed Eve – essentially a complete innocent – to face temptation from a being that, according to the scriptures, was the ‘Father of Lies’, vastly older and more cunning that she was. How is that a fair test of anything? Why let that happen? Is not the outcome of such a struggle of wits all but inevitable? It seems that, once again, Yahweh was playing the trickster god, deliberately setting Adam and Eve up just as he set up Lucifer before them, and indeed goes even further through the doctrine of Original Sin, by which he condems the descendants of Adam and Eve for an event they had no hand in, when any functional ethical system would reject applying the blame for the parent’s actions to their children as unethical.
According to the scriptures, god deliberately engineered the Fall which supposedly brought death and suffering into the world, which makes him directly responsible for every iota of suffering and every death that has ever befallen our species. It makes him the worst genocidal maniac in history.
And of course, it doesn’t stop there. Not being satisfied with genocide, this christian god supposedly goes on to condemn all those who don’t show proper obeisance to him to fire and brimstone at the tender mercies of satan, that same angel whose fall god engineered, apparently specifically for this purpose. Now, the embrace of torture is unethical enough, but this monstrous god ups the ante by leaving no evidence of his existence, according to the young earth creationists even altering the speed of light in order to make the universe appear older than it is. And when people follow the evidence and conclude that there is no evidence for god? He seizes the opportunity to condemn them to hellfire. He also further complicates matters by allowing the formation of literally thousands of different religions, and yet more thousands of sects of chrtistianity, and yet will condemn anyone who picks the ‘wrong’ faith or the ‘wrong’ sect (even when they live in a culture dominated by a ‘false’ religion or sect) to eternal torment while leaving no indication which religion/sect is the ‘correct’ one. Again, we have a god who delights in setting people up and then punishing them when they fall into his trap.
And yet, rather than being horrified that humanity supposedly exists in bondage to such a mendacious, manipulative and sadistic creature, theists claim that we should celebrate this as some kind of unalloyed good, and worship a being that, according to their holy books, is neither just nor even trustworthy, and has a terrible penchant for violent caprice and causal cruelty.
Personally, I am with blogofmyself. We are most fortunate as a species that god is nothing more than a particularly nasty myth, but if it did somehow exist in defiance of all science and reason, then no ethical person could ever worship it or accept its rule. Better by far to exist as a political prisoner in hell than to sell out every ethical principle and bend the knee before such a tyrant.
Poor writing on my part. I did not intend to imply that teh Elliot/ET story was reality. I merely intended to say that it might shock them out of their bubble. Reality would be the best way to shock them out of their protective bubble but Hovind et al are preventing that. Does that make sense now?
Vaiyt, would not that be a variation of Deep Throat.
Heh, this is not even close to being the worst thing I referred to today.
Ogvorbis, my dear:
.
I am in vino and listening to Bowie
.
No seriousness intended x
Darn it – casual cruelty. What is it with me and writing ‘casual’ as ‘causal’?
My cruelty is very casual.
god moves in Mysterious wAyS, GregoRy. *nods*
Damn work! Missed all the fun.
Got to read it all, and it reminded me of long, usually late-night, talks about religion and how much fun they could be . . .
Of course, this wasn’t much fun. Too pathetic. Why didn’t they all just type “Jeebus Loves You!” all the time? That would have been more effective.
Special call out to @412 and blogofmyself. I was going to write:
“If your afterlife really did exist, I would refuse to go to heaven. I would proudly go down to Hell, middle fingers raised high at that tyrant you call a god. I would rather have an eternity of punishment than be complicit in your god’s evil.”
(Or something kinda similar – really, I was).
ChristineRose:
I understand what you’re saying, but how would that prove that *their* specific god is real? After all, gods of various mythologies have the power to do all of that.
For me, I don’t know what would be ample evidence to convince me the *Christian* god exists. It would have to be something only HE could do, not any ole god or demigod. Loki could be responsible for your three examples, and people could just believe it was Yahweh.
Janine, re fan fiction
Sturgeon’s Law is never more evident. HOWEVER, some of the best light fiction I have read in the past five years has been fan fiction. There is some great stuff out there.
I read a lot of it, but I also learned a long time ago to avoid certain things. Anything involving ET and Elliot, though I have never actually seen any, would get a shudder and a pass from me.
I’m sorry you were hurt.
Otrame, I recently started reading Fan Fiction Friday at Topless Robot. I know the risks. I just was not expecting the pain to be so bad.
Touch Me I’m Sick
[I originally had a bunch of responses that basically presumed that I am inerrant. But I decided to cut those out for now.]
What is a God? Define your terms precisely.
That sounds like… reality. Reality “knows” everything, because it is everything, and everything maps to itself. It created the universe, because that is in its nature. It reveals itself to all people, because reality is apparent, and it cannot lie because it is what it is.
Why do you write as if reality has a penis?
Ha! We can talk seriously about epistemology, but you would have to go off-script to do that.
Oh, gosh! A bunch of presuppositionalists running a presuppositional script want to play chatbot, and you’re all upset because we don’t take you seriously!
Get over yourself. Presuppositionalism has been around for a few years now, and we’ve seen silly, stupid, repetative scripts like yours long before you started spouting them off.
The scientific method can never be “shown to be invalid”, because in the broadest sense, it is a method that includes self-correction. If some part of it were shown to be wrong, it would be eliminated, and corrected.
Wrong. Scientists accept such laws, provisionally — but if the laws turned out to be changing over time and space, the scientific method would used to make that finding.
Some cosmologists do indeed suggest that the laws may have changed over time, and are looking for the (faint) evidence that this has happened.
Evolutionary epistemology. Those organisms with brains that made incorrect inferences that affected survival, died.
Sure there is. Logic is part of reality.
They don’t have to. They are all just part of reality.
This is illogical. Reality didn’t create logic. Logic is part of reality. There can indeed be logic without reality having a penis.
You could stand in an exit. You could spin in a revolving door. Are you in or out?
You aren’t here to honestly consider anything at all. Therefore, you must be here to get brownie points. That’s logic.
You gain the smug sense of being a martyr. It is indeed all about you.
No, you don’t. You really don’t care if everyone here is condemned to scream in fire forever — as long as you get the cotton-candy clouds of Fun Land Forever.
Heck, you’re not even willing to examine the premise of humans “spending eternity” anywhere.
The God of the bible considers almost everything to be infinitely worthless.
I don’t deny reality. I deny that reality is a penis-having bad-tempered tyrant.
You want to confirm your myths to yourselves, in other words.
You @240: “If your asking if God can do something logically impossible, No.”
That means that God is bound by logic. Logic is more powerful than your invisble sky fairy!
Are you able to talk about God without contradicting yourself?
Nonsense. Logic is simply what is true, and the combination of the negation, intersection and disjunction of truths. God cannot do the logically impossible of making true be false, or false be true, therefore, God cannot have created logic.
No, it doesn’t. Just because humans cannot create something complex is not proof that that something was created by an intelligence.
That’s not a proof of God. Logic and math cannot be proofs of God, because God cannot make true be false or one quantity be the same as a different quantity. Math and logic exist, and are part of reality.
No, it cannot. Your “worldview” is nothing but a chatbot script.
You’re here to pretend that your mythology about reality having a penis and a bad temper is true.
That’s nice. OK, you’ve done that. Run along now.
We all know that there is reality. You want to have a mythology that reality has a penis and a bad temper.
You deny that reality does not have a penis or a bad temper; I accept it.
Because your fairy-tale penis-having bad-tempered tyrant had a human offspring that was itself. That totally makes no sense.
What “eternal life”? Everyone dies.
We are all subject to reality. But reality has no penis or temper.
What a nice fairy tale. You believe that reality has a penis and a bad temper, and did something mean because of that bad temper.
No, it’s the result of reality. And in your myth, it’s because God has a bad temper.
Oh, no! Fear the bad-tempered tyrant!
Yes; of course the bad-tempered tyrant has arbitrary rules that are super-duper special and stuff. They’re so arbitrary that everybody breaks them. So everybody deserves to be set on fire by the bad-tempered tyrant.
Feh. You may like your masochistic fairy-tale, but it’s appalling that anyone with a brain believes it.
Obviously a bad-tempered penis-having tyrant needs slaves and sycophants to blather and drone on and on about how awesome the bad-tempered penis-having tyrant is.
Well, that was underwhelming. Equivalent to a very fast typing troll using a few sockpuppets. Same inane “arguments”, same inability to grasp counterarguments, same chest-thumping over the fact that we haven’t disproven God (or something), and a fade-away into the same faux politeness. But of course, we are the real groupthinking hivemind borg echo chamber. I suppose accusations of groupthink aren’t as common against people that you wouldn’t dare even accuse of regular think.
Janine,
This is not the first time you lure me there. I’m going to start resenting being sent to those pits of worst fanfiction ever written.
The last time I was at toplessrobot, I read some really disturbing shit. I somehow doubt it will be any different today.
Emrysmyrddin @430
I see you have lexdysic fingers, like me.
#422, perhaps?
And yes, they were both great. Also I was quite pleased to see people with the skills so easily at hand to refute their presupposition foolishness, Matt Penfold, for one.
Nicely done, all.
Beatrice. Try Kiera Marcos. Some of her stuff is disturbing but at least it is well written.
QFFT.
JohnnieCanuck:
My apologies; did I mistake somewhere? :) Unless it’s the capitalisation; I figured if it worked for the godbots, it might confer some special benefit onto me. So far, nowt…
@Tony–Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze– #472
I totally agree, nothing I suggested would prove God in any meaningful sense. Loki is hard enough, but you’ll never disprove that wacky god that chooses to micromanage his universe to look just as if there were no god. Of course if you make it part of the definition of “God” that the Big Guy will always write an infallible holy book and make it available to all humans, you can prove God does not exist easily.
For me it’s just about the preponderance of the evidence. Coming up with definitions that support your side gets weak after a while. For example, saying “Logic could not exist without an eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being that exists spontaneously outside of the laws of physics to think it up” seems to be to be cheating on the definition of logic.
Wow. I just read that “conversation” with Hovind’s pre-sup godbots. Depressing.
Obviously, Hovind is teaching those students nothing more than the usual creationist apologist pre-suppositionalist crap of assuming the conclusion of your argument mixed with the usual gross misunderstandings and misrepresentations of atheism, science, logic and even English, evidenced by their hair-trigger semantic games. He’s doing them an educational disservice and wasting their time and mental energy as they waste their money paying him to do so.
This is your brain on fundamentalism, folks: fundamentally dishonest. Fundamentalism is by necessity and by definition dishonest, in fact. When you decide in advance (of your own volition, via indoctrination or any other reason) that Proposition X is the Truth and that anything in contradiction or opposition to Proposition X is wrong or a lie, you will grasp at anything to justify your pre-commitment to X (even if you don’t do it consciously). And, when the evidence against X mounts, or those who don’t accept X become exasperated by your ridiculous circular arguments or semantics-round-the-mulberry-bush, you attack their tone as evidence they’re wrong or have no leg to stand on, and/or you threaten them with Hell. When all else fails, that’s the clincher: you could’ve spent days arguing politely and using loads of big words but when you can no longer take the heat, you play the Hell card and leave with a smug little smiley and a “God bless you! Hope you don’t roast!”
Y’know, I think there’s a very good (obvious) reason Hovind exhorts his minions to visit atheist threads all in a big group and only for a few minutes at a time (and then go back to the diploma-mill for high-fives for Jesus and Kool Aid, like some grade-school outing to the zoo): if they came here by themselves whenever they wanted and asked honest, off-script questions, they might get honest, thought-provoking answers. Everyone knows, not least people like Hovind, that independent thought is the Achilles Heel of insipid, cartoonish theology and miseducation.
Ayup. It’s terribly, sadly telling that to interact with people outside their group at all they must stick to rote script.
Again, just in case any “students” are checking back, do you realize that no one — no one! — in the real world has “conversations” like this? Do you realize that what is happening here is that your intake of foreign ideas is being prevented at all costs?
That you are being provided with the illusion of interaction with people outside your religious group, but only under a painstakingly-constructed set of highly artificial circumstances specifically intended to minimize any actual exchange of information?
That just in case the barest scrap of an idea from outside may contaminate you, your “teacher” follows up by re-asserting the in-group reality to scrub you clean?
If you want to actually understand the reasoning of people who live without religion, the way to do that is to read our words as we have actual conversations, usually amongst ourselves, which we have done here for a long time, all of which are available for your perusal. You’re not being permitted to do that, though, are you? And it’s not us atheists who are preventing you from doing it, either. Hmmmm.
I mean this is some serious 1984 stuff, and none of you even seem to realize how patently bizarre and absolutely abnormal it is. You should realize.
Me, too. *cough*
Was there some sort of more serious discussion supposed to be going on tonight? /innocently
Owlmirror (#475)
Technically, reality does have a penis. In fact, it has all the penises. If god only has the one penis (and maybe a mountain of lopped off foreskins), then reality is (# of penises) x greater than god.
Dammit, I missed the whole teeny trickle of stupidity. Oh well. #412 is really good!
But you Sharculese @221 – That was the funniest remark in the whole thread. Consider it stolen.
Andrew Wiles *glares* at you, on behalf of Taniyama and Shimura.
;-)
Gregory #464: Awesome comment. I’m keeping that one on file for later use.
Ogvorbis #456: T.S. Eliot / ET fanfiction? I’d probably read that.
Owlmirror #475: Nice.
Wiles proving Fermat was very important, but not as important as realizing that even in maths there is no such things as “absolute truth”.
Matt:
So, your claim is not absolutely true, then. :)
Absolutely maybe.
Definitely Maybe.
blogofmyself
Seeing as your outstanding piece was presented now rather than three weeks ago, no-one’s going to forget your Molly nomination. No-one.
I’ve already kept it for myself. Brilliant.
And for all those innocents with no training in anything, let alone arguing with grownups, you are welcome to come back any time. Read for a while – not just here – there are several FtBloggers who’d be worth your time.
Go away and think for a while, then come back with your questions. Or not. You don’t have to do what we say, but we all feel that you’d benefit from spending some time with ideas and facts that are new to you or discomfiting to deal with. And you don’t need our permission or any parent’s or teacher’s permission to do some research and some thinking of your own, on your own.
“How do you know what’s true?”
“Where does logic come from?”
… and Pascals wager…
That’s it? A couple of survival mechanisms and the boogey man? This is what throws your minds in a loop?
Repeat after me kiddies: “Fossil fuels are a finite resource”
Am Threadrupt, but I’ve brought the grog.
*Shares Blue Moon around*
Ok, I’m gonna try and catch up now.
And…..wow. That was it? I did better back when I was a high school aged godbot.
Thanks all for the excellent snark.
To any of Hovind’s students who might come back, read, read, read. Don’t let yourself get trapped in the bubble of christian music, books and accessories. There is so much more to this world, and it is beautiful.
@Janine
Is it worse than the pokemon entry of fanfiction Friday? (No way in hell I am getting back in there again!)
yawn
1) Empirical evidence and testing and independent confirmation. I care less about whether it’s really really super duper true than whether it’s consistent, useful, reliable, and shared by other parties.
2) Pretty sure the idea of codified logic came from the Greeks.
3) A stupid gamble.
blogofmyself@ 412,
QFMFT. It’s the only choice for any of us not a fool or a coward.